Roadside Find Into Barnyard Treasure

Kevin's parents magically find all sorts of treasures on the side of the road.  We've been offered a sewing desk and concrete forms, just off the tops of our heads.  I don't know if it's a New Jersey thing, or if his parents just have the right kind of luck.  In any case, their most recent find ended up being a real treat for us: a changing table.

Kevin and I never planned on purchasing a changing table - we have an old, low dresser that we planned to paint and put rails on to upcycle into a changing table.  When they found this beauty on the side of the road, though, we knew it would be easier and nicer than our idea.

After a little research, Kevin's parents discovered that this changing table is actually part of the same collection as our crib!  You can't really tell from the photo (maybe a little on the front left rail), but it's pretty banged and scratched up.  That was okay, though, because it needed to be painted white to match the crib, anyway.  Kevin's parents were nice enough to paint it before they came down this past weekend to help us with the nursery.

We popped on some custom knobs I ordered from Etsy:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/PATRINASPLACE

And, voila!

Kevin and me and the changing table

Kevin's parents and the changing table

We're still going to paint that old dresser white, and just use it as a dresser.

By the way, do not be thrown off by the blue room!  It's blue, like the sky, not like a baby boy!  That's not to say that we are not having a boy; just that you shouldn't think that we know something you don't.  If you haven't guessed, we're doing a farm animal theme.  More pics to come as we actually get the thing together, but if you want a better idea, check out my Pinterest board.

Summer Goings-On

Finally, we're on an honest-to-goodness vacation that has given me some time to update this blog!  We're down in the Outer Banks on the annual Ulmes Family beach vacation - my first as an "official" Ulmes.  We rent a house for a week with Kevin's parents, brother and fiance.  Next summer, it will be her first vacation as an "official" Ulmes.  :-)

This picture is from last summer, when I was still "unofficial."

 Lots has been going on in our world!  In the weeks leading up to July 4th, we were working feverishly to get our house to look like, well, a house, and not a storage unit.  Although it's certainly not as homey as I'd like it to be, yet, it does finally look like a place where people live, and not where they store stuff.

Kevin was particularly concerned about getting the pool and the pool area ready.  This ended up being a huge task.  It appeared as though the previous owners did pretty much nothing to maintain the pool or pool area.  The pool was essentially a pond, complete with tadpoles and croaking frogs, surrounded by overgrown bushes and grasses.  Kevin worked valiantly for what seemed like weeks trying to clean that pool out using the skimmer and a variety of chemicals (his favorite part), but finally relented and emptied the pool.  Then, he just jumped in with a power washer and scrubbed up the sides.  We actually have a pretty cool time lapse video of this, which I'll have to post after a little processing.

We then cut back the overgrown foliage around the pool.  I've been really bad about remembering to take "before" photos, but here's some of the work in progress:

Kevin

Bryan

Sarah

Unfortunately, although we have a ton of pictures (to come) from our July 4th Housewarming BLAST, we don't really have one that really shows the transformation.  I'll have to take one when we get back to show you.

Bryan and Sarah, pictured above, were invaluable indentured servants helpers  house guests over the past two months.  Another thing that's being going on is that these two have been staying with us since their house sold until they were able to move into a new one.

They don't always look this nice.

This was originally only supposed to be a few weeks, but their original contract fell through, so it ended up being a little longer.  The good news is that staying with us just a few weeks lured them up to our area, and they found a charming place for much less than where they were originally looking.  So, now we have more friends up north with us!  They were also super, super-helpful with our home projects, and while Sarah insists they are "forever indebted" to us for letting them stay with us, we can assure her that the feeling is mutual!  The house will be empty when we get back from the beach, and we will miss the weeknight dinners and weekend bacon!

We also spent a few days in San Francisco and Monterey, CA, while Kevin was out there for a conference.  I have a lengthy post about it that I started on the airplane ride back that I'll post soon.  Here's a preview:

So, sorry for what has essentially ended up be the equivalent of a mid-summer Christmas letter.  Consider it your Christmas in July gift! 

Goldilocks and the Three Greens

Three greens?  What about six greens?  Or maybe even nine?

This is why it took us three weeks to paint our kitchen.

And that three weeks doesn't count the previous two weeks, when squares of green pranced across the wall above the counter, revealing whether they were too bright, too light, too dark, or too blue.  No green appeared to be "just right."

I wanted an apple-y bright green kitchen with red accents.  Something sort of like this, as far as the colors go, but not so modern:

Here's an inspiration board I created through Polyvore:

Kitchen Inspiration by GloWorm59 on Polyvore.com


I know there are some folks, mostly men, who recoil with horror upon seeing the green on my inspiration board. And I will tell you, I learned that if this was the vibe I wanted in kitchen, the color(s) that I intially thought would provide it was far too flourescent.  When I painted the sample square (or three) on the wall, it looked my kitchen might be the studio for an eighties workout video.  I pondered mounting black lights under the cabinets.  I knew that that was not the vibe I wanted for the kitchen, so I had to figure which way to go on the color wheel. 

First, I tried lighter.  The pale green I selected looked like a sickly white once up on the wall.  Then, I reasoned - if the color I thought I wanted was too bright once it was up on the wall, then I needed to choose a shade that was slightly duller than what I thought I wanted.  With this approach, the colors I chose ended up having more of a blue hue than I wanted - more of a sage than an apple.

I was ready to abandon green all together.  Could I go back to yellow after swearing it off?  Maybe some shade of aqua or teal?  Match the dining room with Lilac Whisper?  Exhausted, yet determined, I tried one more round of greens.  This time, I took the "too blue" greens and looked for something a little more yellow, without getting the whole way to "flourescent."

BINGO!  I found our happy medium with two options:  Summer Field and Inch Worm.  Inch Worm was slightly darker and more blue.  I was torn, but since Kevin preferred Inch Worm, we tried it.



Inch Worm



Summer Field



I know the Summer Field looks almost yellow, but it really was more of a green on the wall. 

Over Easter Weekend, my dad helped us put on the first coat.  Once it covered the kitchen, we were very skeptical.  It was still a little dark and a little blue.   Painting halted while we hemmed and hawed for two weeks, trying to decide if we should keep it.  We considered switching to Summer Field, and I painted two large sample squares for our consideration.

We ended up deciding that Summer Field looked a little pukey, and that Inch Worm had grown on us enough to try it.  Once we did the second coat last weekend and removed the painter's tape, we are finally satisfied. 

I learned a lot about selecting a paint color through this process.  I've done it before with relatively little trouble, but this was especially challenging.  I would say that I took three lessons from all this:

1. If you want a bright color, realize that the color that looks as bright as what you think you want might be too bright.  Try it anyway, but select a few more subtle samples, as well.
2. When selecting samples, start with a few that are quite different.  I ended up with almost a dozen samples because I started with about four that were too bright, then two that were too light, one that was too dark, three that were too blue, and then two that ended up being real options.  I should have gone with one of each of these categories initially to see what would work, then maybe buy a few more samples within that group.
3. If you're unsure about a color, remove the painter's tape and sit with it for a few days.  It's amazing how different your impression can be once that blue outline is gone.  Also, use your normal lighting so you can get a sense of what it will normally look like.

This isn't the greatest picture, but it can give you an idea:

I do plan to replace those stained "glass" windows, as they don't really go with look I'm going for.  I'm considering replacing them with punched copper, or hand-painted stained "glass" with flowers that echo the curtains (those flowered ones on the inspiration board). I'm anxious to get it all together so I feel like we can start enjoying our home!

Care for a drink?

As I've mentioned before, my cat Snuffles has quite a personality.  Although she certainly does stereotypically "cat things," I would argue that she is not a stereotypical cat. 

One thing she does that is a stereotypical "cat thing" is enjoy what my friend calls a "sink drink."  This is actually a fairly new development.  At my old apartment in the city, Snuffles always loved a drink from the tub, so much that she stopped drinking from her water bowl and would just wait for me to turn on the tub.  She would DEMAND it, standing in the tub, yowling until I turned the faucet.  For whatever reason, though, it never occurred to her to jump into my bathroom sink for a drink.  It was a free-standing sink with no counter, so maybe she just didn't have a place to stand.

At one point, I tried to capitalize on her love of running water by getting her one of those pet drinking fountains.  In my mind, this would spare her the anxiety of waiting for me to turn on the tub faucet for her when I was gone for long stretches, and would relieve me of those demanding tub duties. Would you believe that she was terrified of the pet fountain?  She would just circle the fountain, and crouch and stare at it.  That $40 pet fountain provided no return on investment.  I ended up selling it on eBay.

When we moved to Kevin's townhouse, she was not permitted in the master bathroom, so the tub drinks stopped.  I was amazed at how often I needed to fill her water bowl once it became her primary water source.  It would appear that she had forgotten about the existance of the tub.

Until we moved to the new house.  Okay, maybe I reminded her.  Maybe, as she explored the upstairs, I carried her into the bathroom and put her in the tub.  And, just maybe, I turned the water to a slow trickle and watched with delight as she cautiously approached the stream and started lapping.  And, it is slightly possible that I created a monster.  Now, she bolts up the stairs at full speed, skids into the bathroom and leaps into the tub, yowling the whole way.  But look how cute she is!  It just gives me so much pleasure to see her so happy.

Since moving to the house and rediscovering the tub, she has also discovered the sink.  She'll hop up into the sink, tracking dirty footprints, and chirp for water.

Funny - Kevin and I have been so busy lately, we haven't had a lot of time for Lap Time with Snuffles.  So, when I sat on the side of the tub to video her, she actually ignored the running water and hopped up on my lap, instead.

Moving is Hard

Not to sound like Moving Barbie, but moving is hard!

It's not like I didn't know that.  It's not that I haven't moved at least 10 times in my life, if you include to and from college every year.  Until now, those were all small potatoes.  Those college moves were little baby steps, apartment moves a childlike scamper, but this big house move is surely a marathon.

Think about it - when you move into a residence hall, you really only need to worry about your personal items, clothing, decorations, etc.  In your first apartment (or three), you may or may not worry about furniture, combining "vintage" hand-me-down pieces with thrift-store and Walmart finds, figuring it's only temporary.  Even if you're in an apartment long enough to upgrade to "grown-up" furniture, it's still a much smaller space.  Plus, it's easier to be less picky with an apartment, since it is most likely temporary (even though some folks stay in their "temporary" apartments longer than others have been in their purchased houses!).

Even moving into Kevin's townhouse wasn't this hard.  Truthfully, I don't remember a whole lot of what he dealt with when he moved in, since I was only around on weekends at that time.  By the time I moved in, things were pretty much settled, and I just squeezed my stuff in where I could.

Like I said, this big house thing is truly a marathon.  Don't get me wrong - the house is in good condition.  Nothing is wrong - really wrong, anyway - with it.  There are things that  are less than ideal, quirky, and not to our taste.  And we want it all to be the way we want it RIGHT NOW.  As I discussed with a friend, I want it to be like The Sims where I can change out paint colors and rearrange furniture with the touch of a button, and undo if if I don't like it.  Instead, we sit with our kitchen in disarray for two weeks while we decide if the green is too green, and wondering if it's actually growing on us, or are we just tired of paint trays on the counter?  Meanwhile, deer are grazing on our grass because it took Kevin a week to get our hand-me-down tractor (for which we are super-grateful) in order.

So, I guess all this is to say that I'm sorry I haven't updated more lately.  I've been busy and exhausted, but I'm trying to be better.  In the meantime, say hello to the first stinkbug of the season:

 This was taken April 3rd.  We've given many more a burial at sea (toilet) since then.  They are prolific.

And you might also enjoy this:

1.  Kevin misspelled utensils.
2.  Kevin cared enough to make a note questioning his spelling of utensils on a packing box.
3.  I love that someone (I don't know who) went in and added foreign language accents.  I'm trying to figure out how to pronounce it, but don't really know what a tilde does to an "e."

Anyway, back to work!  I'm sure I have a box to unpack or a kitchen wall to stare at.

Our (FINALLY!) House

Last week, on a gray, drizzly Thursday, we bought a house. A week or so earlier, Kevin and I picked up a copy of 

from Trohv (formerly Red Tree).  Below the title it reads, "The Story of Our Home."  It has prompts for you to tell the story of how you found the house, bought the house, and made it your "home."  It also has a number of spaces for suggested photos, such as "When the Realtor Hands You the Keys."  Now, this is my first home-buying experience, but the key exchange ended up not striking me as a particularly photographic moment.  Especially considering that the sellers, not our realtor, handed us the keys.  But I did have visions of us taking cheesy photos opening the front door for the first time, or posed next to the mailbox.  But, as I mentioned, it was a dreary, rainy day, and not really fit for photo-taking.  In fact, I didn't even go back to the house after we had the walk-through and closing.  If the photos were going to be staged, anyway, we might as well save them for a nice day.

We did spend our first night as new homeowners at the house, though.  I have to admit, once I was in the house and it was ours, I felt a lot like what I imagine my cat felt like the first time she came to (then) Kevin's house.  Like most house cats, Snuffles hasn't really gotten around very much.  Before we moved into the townhouse, my Hampden apartment was the only home she'd known.  She had also been to my parent's and Darra's house, but always seemed to adapt almost immediately once she got there.  So, the first time I brought her to (then) Kevin's house, I wasn't concerned at all; she seemed comfortable at my parent's and Darra's, so surely she'd relax quickly here, as well.  False.  When we let her out of her kitty carrier, she cautiously crawled out and slinked around the house, close to the ground, tail whipping.  She would freeze, crouched down with hair raised, and yowl.

This is how I felt when we were alone for the first time in our new house.  It was big.  It didn't look like our house.  It smelled funny.  I didn't, and still really don't, know what to make of it.  It confused and overwhelmed me.  As I posted on my Facebook page, this was not my beautiful house!  (they just don't make music videos the way they used to, do they? Take a look and enjoy the old-school green screen.)

Despite the weirdness, we poured two glasses of port that we had saved from our 2007 wine trip to California, and toasted our new place.

If you look closely, you can still see some of the terror in my eyes.

We introduced Snuffles to the new house on Saturday.  But that's another post. I will say, although I was terrified it wouldn't happen, she did become comfortable in (then) Kevin's house within a week, and now considers it "home."  So, I think there's hope for both of us.

The first of many cheesy posed shots.

Much-Anticipated House Photos

If you're friends with Kevin on facebook, you might have noticed that, the other day, he made his album of house pictures public, all 260 of them.  I know that you care about us, but not 260 photos-of-our-house-care about us, so I've slimmed it down to around 12 for you.  Kevin would say that I am remiss in not including any of the dozens of photos of the HVAC system, water heater connections, and other utilities.  If there is a clamoring demand for these, perhaps he can do a guest post.

Anyway, on with the photo-tour of the house:

Starting with the outside...

 This is as close to a picture of the front of the house as we have.  In all of those 260 photos.

Going around to the side, you get a nice view of the yard and where we think we're going to put our garden.  And that fenced in area?  Yup!  It's a pool! We definitely didn't go looking for a house with a pool.  But as our realtor told us, the pool is essentially "free."  Since some buyers see it as an asset, and others a liability, the presence of a pool, at least in Maryland, doesn't really effect the price of a house.  We're happy to have it, as we know it will lure our city friends to visit us in the summer since we've moved (even) further away!

Coming around the back of the house.  You can kinda see that it looks like there should be a deck on the back of the house, but we think previous owners opted to have the deck closer to the pool.  Kevin sees a deck-building project in the future (insert joke about entertainment center here).  That guy is Ed, our realtor.  He's awesome!

 The deck.

 View from the deck, overlooking the pool.  Hot tub project also in the future.

This angle makes the pool area look much more lush and exotic than it is.  We actually want to pull some of the plants out to make more space for hanging out next to the pool.

The backyard.  We (I) want to move the play set so that it's not right in the middle of the yard.  It's going to get in the way of my planned volleyball court.  ;-)

Now, to the inside...

 Dining room.  They want to keep the chandelier.  It's actually written in the contract.

 Kitchen.  Yay, counter space!

 Breakfast nook in the kitchen.

 This is my favorite part of the kitchen.  Look at this crazy pantry!  I love how all the shelves pull out!

Random room next to the kitchen.  I think it was intended to be the dining room, and the current dining room a living room.  I think we'll probably keep the dining room as a dining room, because I always thought it was silly to have a family room and a living room.  But we're not sure what to do with this room.  Definitely don't want to keep it as an office.  Maybe a library?  Bar?  Breakfast nook?

 The family room.  That wall color is going.

 The "guest suite."

 Master bedroom.

 Still the master.  We actually think it is way too big, and are thinking of ways to use the space better.

Master bath.  Yes, that's a phone right next to the toilet.  Funnily enough, this is not the only house we've looked at that had a phone next to the toilet.  What is up with that?

 Other upstairs bathroom.  I just wanted you to see the hideous linoleum floor.

  Finished basement, and of course...

Kevin would definitely want to show you the garage!

So, there it is! It's in great shape, but there are definitely a lot of adjustments we'd like to make.  Should be fun; I just hope we get the changes we want done and stay there long enough to enjoy them!

Our (Soon-to-Be) House

As many of our friends and acquaintances know, Kevin and I have been trying to buy a house for awhile.  We've actually been looking at houses off and on since the spring of 2009, and finally decided on a house on which to place an offer this past November.  After a couple of hurdles, as of this past Friday, we received word from our bank that we are finally "clear to close."

It seems a little unreal to me.  I asked Kevin if anything else could wrong at this point, and it doesn't really seem so, short of the sellers trashing the place before the final walk-through, which doesn't seem likely, as I'm pretty sure they want to sell their house even more than we want to buy it.

So now, I feel safe enough to actually write some stuff about the house without jinxing anything.

One of the reasons Kevin and I took so long to settle on a house is because we both have very different ideas about what our ideal house/location would be.  Ideally, I would like a house with a modest yard on a side street in a quaint little town, of which there are none in Central MD.  So, my second choice is a house in Roland Park, a historic upscale neighborhood in Baltimore City.  Quiet, tree-lined streets just blocks away from kitschy shopping and dining.  Kevin, on the other hand, would like to have a house in someplace similar to the middle of Montana, minus the rest of Montana. But on the East Coast. In other words, Kevin wants a lot of property, and to not be able to see our neighbors.  You can see where our two visions are not exactly compatible.   

Since I know Kevin would truly be miserable in the city, and I have been known to enjoy the outdoors and open fields, we agreed on a few acres outside of the city...a little north, as anything with multiple acres closer to the city would be out of our price range (yes, you can get a house with an acre or greater lot in the city, just be prepared to spend over a million dollars and $10-20K per year in taxes!).  So, we're buying a house with around 3 acres about 20 minutes north of Baltimore in a small, cul-de-sac neighborhood. I admit to being a little nervous about the cul-de-sac neighborhood with no side streets - it's the kind of street that I grew up on and was not fond of.  I'm hoping that as an adult, it will grow on me.  A cool thing about the neighborhood, although it is definitely more suburban than urban or even rural, is that it is not cookie-cutter at all.  It seems like most of the houses in developments going up nowadays all look pretty much the same, and even a lot of older developments, like my parents', built in the 50's, only had a few designs to choose from.  With this neighborhood, it seems like there might not have been a builder for the neighborhood, so there is an array of styles on the street.

I've been obsessing about how to decorate.  Be on the lookout for posts about some ideas I have!  Photos of the house in its current state are on the way, too.